


rewrite the stars

by timeythirteen (BreePosens)



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 14:03:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17387717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BreePosens/pseuds/timeythirteen
Summary: When Ellie picks up the phone, Beth's concerns fall on deaf ears. It's not that she doesn't want to answer, it's just... it's too much right now.[a lesbian rewriting of broadchurch no one asked for. or, danny, the aftermath, and a lonely town.]





	rewrite the stars

**Author's Note:**

> howdy. for bonus feels please play beth's theme whilst reading. also, i don't really care that Miller is Joe's surname, because you can prise me using it as the surname for beth and ellie here from my cold, dead, hands.
> 
> aka. beth latimer deserves better than mark.

 

 

> You know I want you  
>  It's not a secret I try to hide  
>  But I can't have you  
>  We're bound to break and my hands are tied

 

Beth doesn’t make it to the kitchen until everyone else has left the house. Scanning the room, she notices nothing out of the ordinary: the milk on the side without its lid; a knife poking out of the marg where it’s been stabbed in; plates and bowls a leaning tower in the washing up bowl. Organised chaos.

The faint scent of Ellie lingers on the towel slung over the oven’s door handle. Beth resents using it to mop spilt milk up for a moment, before something distinctly blue registers in the corner of her vision. Oh for God’s sake, she thinks, Danny’s lunchbox. Clearly being on holiday has ruined his daily routine. She resolves to drop it at the school on her way to meet Ellie for a coffee over her break; her heart still skips a beat after all these years.

Danny’s number is muscle memory now, and she leaves the most jovial message she can this early: “You left your lunch box at home, I’ll come drop it by when I go to the police station later. Love you, bye!”

Even after hanging up she takes the time to stare at her phone for a few more moments, waiting for a text from him. Lord knows she hasn’t got any other plans today; Ellie’s the breadwinner.

She loiters in the kitchen for a few moments longer before putting the milk and marg away, and resolving to tackle the growing pile of crockery later.

It’s when she moves through the house to the living room that she notices the methodic flashing of the answerphone button on their landline. It isn’t a trick of the light or anything, it’s actually real. And only a few places would phone the landline over her mobile.

“One new message. Message one:” the phone begins to read out.

“Hello, it’s Miss Sherez from South Wessex Secondary. I’m just phoning to enquire about Danny’s unauthorised absence this morning.”

Fuck.

* * *

Everything feels foreign: her work suit, the station, her daily routine. After weeks of basking in sunshine — the real kind, where Danny kept getting burnt and Beth went around with a dot of suncream on the end of her nose — the clinical lights reflecting off the concrete of the station’s floor feel too austere for Broadchurch.

Though if the building is austere, the people within it are not; the team immediately begin to fill Ellie in on the gossip surfacing around Broadchurch, and she hands out the souvenirs she brought back. They move onto the demands to see pictures, and Ellie can’t help but highlight Danny’s burns:

“He was peeling on the plane, Chloe would keep pulling it off to mess with him.” She shakes her head, swiping through the images on her phone. There’s several from Disney: Beth and Chloe in matching Minnie Mouse ears, Beth scrunching her face in the aftermath of one of Danny’s terrible jokes, a video of Danny terrorising Chloe with a pair of Mickey Mouse gloves. The whole trip was entirely family fun; Ellie wishes they could’ve stayed a little longer.

“DS Miller? You’ve got a shout. On the beach.”

* * *

The first time she calls, Ellie leaves it to ring. Her bag, badge hanging out, was slung away as soon as the realisation came it would only slow her down. Her phone is wedged somewhere in the sand, picture of Beth emblazoned on the screen. Her, Beth, Chloe — it already hurts too much.

“DS Miller?” Hardy asks, staring impatiently from above, “aren’t you going to answer that?”

When Ellie picks up the phone, Beth’s concerns fall on deaf ears. It’s not that Ellie doesn’t want to hear her wife’s voice, it’s just… it’s too much right now.

“Where are you? Danny forgot his lunch and he didn’t turn up to school, I—”

Ellie’s eyes shimmer with unshed tears, “at– I’m at the beach.”

“The _beach_? Have you lost your mind El? We’ve only just got back from Florida.” There’s a breathy laugh surfacing between Beth’s words, and Ellie shakes her head, despite knowing she’s only being watched by DI Hardy and the growing collection of onlookers.

“Something like that.”

Beth’s clearly trying to take her dejectiveness and spin it into something more positive: “Well I’ll come find you and we can go and find Danny — he’s probably just playing football somewhere. Be there soon, love you!”

“Love you t—” but Beth’s already hung up.

“DS Miller if we could identify the body we could notify his next of kin, stop this from turning into a spectator sport.”

Ellie’s mouth opens, her lungs expelling all the air they hold in a scream; they don’t need to notify his next of kin. She can no longer defend herself from heated tears, crumbling onto Broadchurch beach.

* * *

The crowd on the beach stretches across Broadchurch’s picturesque sands, bodies facing to the east, frantic whispers seeping into the cloudless sky.

Beth catches sight of Ellie’s curls at the edge of the crowd. She makes a beeline for her wife, pushing past disgruntled tourists and curious locals, muttering apologies and ignoring their stares.

“Ellie!” Beth steps around a police officer, smiling her hellos as she goes, “Danny didn’t pick up his phone — I’m convinced he’s bunking off.” Her right hand goes to Ellie’s shoulder, turning her wife around from where she’s distinctly ignoring her. “El? What’s wrong?”

“Mrs Miller, I have to ask you to step back.” Detective Inspector Alec Hardy takes Beth’s arm.

The white sheet flutters in the wind, catching in the corner of Beth’s vision. It’s almost two hundred yards away from the police cordon, but it’s unmistakably a body. Beth turns back to Ellie, registering the way she’s turned away again.

Pulling her hand back under her own control, Beth restates her case, “We have to go and find Danny, _now_.” Ellie’s eyes scan across the beach, and Beth follows them. The silence reignites the panic hibernating in Beth’s gut. She weighs up the distance.

“Mrs Miller, you need to get off the beach.”

The white sheet flutters in the wind, and its corners catch Beth’s attention. This time they’re not merely being caught by the wind and being lifted into the mid-morning sun: they’re bouncing off something.

Piss off, Beth wants to say, it’s my beach as much as anyone’s. How _dare_ they try and get her off it. She’ll be able to escape Ellie’s grasp easily enough, the other detective she’s not sure about. But now she _has_ to know. _Has_ to have closure. Then they can go find Danny and send him to school.

She puts one foot in front of the other, beginning a sprint powered solely by desperation. Her shoes aren’t made for running and her feet succumb to the sand quicker with every step.

“Mrs Miller!”

Hardy’s words fade into the sand and evaporate into the sun. Beth refuses to look over her shoulder; she can’t face Ellie until she _knows_. She may be fit, but the long shadows of the police officers grow alongside her legs, the distance between her and them closing. Their shadows chase hers as she continues over the sun-warmed sand, but she keeps going, running into the heart of her anxieties and then the all too familiar, unnaturally bright colours flash before her eyes as the sheet flutters upward again.

Blue suede with a yellow stripe. Danny’s shoes. Danny’s shoes, shoes which she purchased herself on a family day out, exposed ever so slightly by forensics’ makeshift shroud. What is left of her façade crumbles to granules of sand.

She turns to the crowd, meeting Ellie’s eye, “Those are Danny’s!” Her words echo off the cliffs and dissipate into the sea. “ _Those are Danny’s,_ Ellie!” Beth’s pulse reaches its crescendo, piano notes falling apart and dissolving into sobs. The police officers tower over her, doing their job and leading her away, yet giving her an empathetic squeeze before she falls into Ellie’s arms.

Beth fights against Ellie’s grip, yet she can’t escape. She refuses to leave him out here, on the sand. Grains will get in his hair, cause his dandruff to flare. He’ll get cold underneath the sheet, he needs a blanket – his one with AFC Bournemouth’s crest on it, which he hugs as his season ticket sits safely in Ellie’s purse.

When she tries to run back toward her son, she’s dragged away for good; her feet digging trenches in the sand.


End file.
